linux-kernel - Re: the " 'official' point of view" expressed by kernelnewbies.org

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Date:	Mon, 24 Jul 2006 23:07:12 -0500
From:	Matthew Frost <artusemrys@...global.net>
To:	Al Boldi <a1426z@...ab.com>
CC:	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: the " 'official' point of view" expressed by kernelnewbies.org

Al Boldi wrote:
> Jeff Garzik wrote:
>> Hans Reiser wrote:
>>> As the other poster mentioned, they went off to startups, and did not
>>> become part of our community.  How much of that was because their
>>> contributions were more hassled than welcomed, I cannot say with
>>> certainty, I can only say that they were discouraged by the difficulty
>>> of getting their stuff in, and this was not as it should have been.
>>> They were more knowledgeable than we were on the topics they spoke on,
>>> and this was not recognized and acknowledged.
>>>
>>> Outsiders are not respected by the kernel community.  This means we miss
>>> a lot.
>> Anyone who fails to respect the kernel development process, the process
>> of building consensus, is turn not respected, flamed, and/or ignored.
>>
>> If you don't respect us, why should we respect you?
> 
> Respect what?  The process or the content?
> 
> Rejecting content due to disrespect for process guidelines would be rather 
> sad.
> 
> If the content is worth its salt, it should be accepted w/o delay, then 
> modified to comply with the process guidelines as necessary.  It's what the 
> GPL allows, afterall.
> 

I just love it when people try to ignore a longstanding social system 
and butt right in, demanding to be heard and acted upon with all haste. 
  Politeness and protocol are essential social lubricants for a system 
that doesn't work that well to begin with.  You've seen this fortune 
entry before.

As a system administrator, how do you handle a process that repeatedly 
violates system policy?  That repeatedly submits bad input and defies 
correction?  A user that repeatedly attempts to circumvent priority and 
management structures?    Is that content 'worth its salt' if it 
violates the good order of the system?  Or do you attempt to fix the 
program, or educate the user?  And when that fails, don't you kill that 
process, or kick that user and revoke their privileges?

The kernel developers have done better than they had to for a repeated 
violation of protocol, and an obnoxious attitude towards proper 
procedure and politeness.  Yes, there were responses in kind, and flames 
back and forth, but there were helpful suggestions and good advice, 
mostly seen as affront to the 'importance' of this particular project. 
The very attitude that "If it's good enough, it doesn't need to obey 
protocol" is what has killed Reiser4.  Understand this, above all.

Submit output that can be taken as input by this system without 
judicious additional parsing.  Be UNIX-like.  Do many separate things 
separately, do them each well, and submit them to be executed 
atomically.  If one fails, fix it and resubmit.  Reiser4 has not earned 
privileges above any other user on this system.

> Thanks!

Any time.

> --
> Al
> 

Matt
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